Simulator helps veterans confront painful memories

Sometimes the best way to make people feel better is to first make them feel worse.

That's certainly the best proven method to help people overcome post-traumatic stress disorder, not least of whom are veterans returning from combat zones, said Patrick McGrath, director of the Anxiety and OCD Program at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital in Hoffman Estates.

McGrath spoke to the Schaumburg Business Association Tuesday morning to explain his approach and his hospital's innovative use of a virtual reality simulator to help veterans wounded by painful memories in Iraq or Afghanistan confront the source of their perpetual anxiety.

The simulator can recreate the look and feel of everything from the quietest day to the most chaotic battle in these countries, depending on the exact nature of a PTSD sufferer's stress, McGrath said.

The Illinois Department of Veterans' Affairs awarded Alexian Brothers a grant for the simulator, which is the only one of its kind in the state.

Sound effects and even smells are recreated to help trigger the memories that a patient may have been strenuously trying to avoid.

But avoidance and constant reassurance from others is the least likely way for a person to overcome behavioral problems like PTSD or obsessive-compulsive disorder, McGrath said.

That method leads sufferers to conclude that they're OK only because of successful avoidance, not because they can actually cope.

"I have a fun job," McGrath joked. "I make people feel afraid all day long to help them confront their fears."

Other aspects of his job include making OCD sufferers touch toilet seats and stand in piles of garbage.

"Is this an uncomfortable therapy? Absolutely, but it has the best results," McGrath said.

While post-traumatic stress disorder has long been a consequence of war, the current wars have been presenting new challenges for doctors.

While PTSD has historically been more strongly associated with men, the rising number of women in combat zones is showing that the disorder occurs at about twice the rate among them.

Also, physical brain injuries are more common among today's soldiers than at any time in the past, McGrath said.

The reason for this, ironically, is the better combat armor soldiers wear. They are now surviving traumatic injuries that would have killed them before, but an often invisible consequence is the jarring of the brain they still suffer, McGrath said.